West Wing: The 25th Amendment

Caveat - RollWave was kind enough to point me towards this fanedit when it became suddenly unavailable. RollWave personally contacted me after I expressed interest in viewing this edit.

I am a HUGE West Wing fan. My friends and I ran though the entire series on DVD, usually multiple episodes per night. This particular storyline is one of our favorites, and I was interested in seeing how RollWave slimmed it from 336 minutes to a svelte 144.

The answer is simple - Voodoo. RollWave practiced Voodoo. Because to be honest, and having JUST watched the series, we could not really tell where the edits were. And to us, that was amazing.

If you know West Wing, this is a treat. If you DON'T know West Wing, this is a really great stand-alone film, or an outstanding introduction to the series, or a way to convert a non-fan.

The visuals were flawless, even on a DVD-5. The audio editing, as previously mentioned, had a couple of minor transition issues, but I'm not sure how they could have been avoided, and if you weren't looking for them, you would not notice them (I shouldn't have read Neglify's review beforehand, LOL). The story itself was outstanding. One of our favorite storylines from the series, in an easy to digest morsel.

And "The Jackal" as the end credits was brilliant!

Run, do not walk, and watch this Fanedit.

As a fan of West Wing I was intrigued by this edit. I really wasn't sure what to expect. I was wowed from beginning to end. Even knowing how the storyline progressed before watching this, I was still pulled into the narrative and rather than going from episode to episode, I got a feature length movie that was smooth, cohesive and compelling.

This character driven drama continues to build in a flawless fashion that keeps your attention from beginning to end. At no point do you feel like you are watching a televised series with scenes piled together in order.

Every scene was one logical progression after another. The emotional weight of the series wasn't lost in this feature length movie. It had the heart and passion that the TV series West Wing always possessed. The editing gets a high mark because of how well scenes flow from one to the other.

The storyline, editing, character development, music, and drama were pulled together and presented as a top tiered political dramatic movie. Highly recommended.

Summary:

This is an absolutely wonderful fanedit. Highly recommended for West Wing fans or lovers of political drama.


Technical:

The editing here is solid all the way through. If I hadn’t read the cutlist after I would have never known how many episodes were combined. Hell I had to read Wikipedia to really understand how much work was done. This edit flows so smoothly one scene to the next. Bravo.

Commercial break transitions were handled nicely; I didn’t notice any on-screen credits or zoomed shots to remove them. DVD quality was good, matched the source quality.

I had small nitpicks with some of the audio editing. They were really minor so I’m not going to waste time talking about them. You may or may not notice; they may or may not bother you; your mileage may vary.


Storytelling:

The narrative structure is the strongest part of this edit. I have never watched a single episode of The West Wing but I’d always wanted to check it out. (And yes I purchased the source material.)

You can go in completely blind deaf and dumb and still be able to follow everything. I connected to the characters and once the plot kicked into high gear I was glued to my screen. The three act structure is done very well and this feels like something that was intended as a theatrical movie.

And this show is really good. They weren’t kidding when they said they had great writers. Powerhouse storytelling, acting, everything.


A/V quality – 8
Editing – 10 visual, 9 audio
Narrative – 10
Enjoyment – 9

Recommended drink: Man O' War

It's been a loooooong time since I've watched The West Wing. I went into this edit without reading the cutlist or the editor's intention. Ironically even the title of the edit didn't clue me in or jog my memory concerning the story arc.

Enter The 25th Amendment. In all honesty the first hour of the edit was a bit boring for me, however the opening minutes were excellent at drawing me in. But I understand that a lot needed to be set-up, characters introduced, plot elements set in motion. So the fact that I found the first hour of the edit a bit dry was no fault of RollWave, the source material lends itself to lots of dialogue and not much action (not that I was expecting an action movie!). Maybe my attention span is waning in my old age.

Now after the one hour mark, I was hooked. The storyline picked up and I was glued to the screen for the next hour and a half. So the set-up was necessary and worth the pay off.

Ok time for some of my obnoxious nitpicking. There was one scene that felt a little out of place and could have been cut out and that was when The President gives his wife a necklace. This is just my opinion and not a big deal.

Video and audio quality were good. The majority of the cuts were invisible. Nice DVD menus and credits.

This edit is highly recommended!

Nice job RollWave!

It was a good scenario to pick for a fan edit. I'm a fan of the west wing and I always like to find fan edits to help bring people into the series that I like to watch. There was only some minor video/audio things, but these might have been from the original footage and not from the editing.

I had watched the series about a year and a half ago. Going into the beginning of the fan edit, I was a bit confused as to who was who and who did what. I think anyone who had not already watched the show would have been thoroughly confused.

I understand the assassination thing, but I think the piece as a whole would have been stronger without it and instead use the time in the beginning of the film to better introduce each character and their job/duties, OR have this be the second of a series of fan edits. maybe a nice trilogy. Maybe I'll make a prequel, who knows!

Other than that, very enjoyable and nice to see the old gang again.